Blue Ocean 4 Actions Framework Template
Break the value-cost trade-off and create a blue ocean with four central questions.
Trusted by 65M+ users and leading companies
About the Blue Ocean 4 Actions Framework template
The Four Actions template is designed to help entrepreneurs think in more innovative ways about the products they are creating relative to the industry. The framework will help you maximize user value and eliminate unnecessary product features by eliminating and reducing user pain, and raising and creating user gain.
Who created the 4 Actions Framework for Blue Ocean Strategy?
The Blue Ocean Four Actions Framework was created by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne. They are Professors of Strategy at INSEAD, one of the world’s top business schools, and co-directors of the INSEAD Blue Ocean Strategy Institute in Fontainebleau, France. Together, they wrote a best-selling book Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant.
Why use the Four Actions Framework?
The Blue Ocean Four Actions Framework can help you assess whether you are spending money in the correct ways around your product to maximize user gain and minimize user pain. Identify the pains that really matter for your product and the gains that really matter with this template. This way, you are getting the most value with the least cost within the total product market.
When to use the Four Actions Framework Template
The Four Actions Framework Template is most useful when you help create value innovation and break the value-cost trade-off. W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne use the terms red and blue oceans to describe the market universe. They say that ‘red oceans are all the industries in existence today—the known market space.’ In the red oceans, industry boundaries are defined and accepted, and the competitive rules of the game are known. As the market space gets crowded, prospects for profits and growth are reduced. Blue oceans, in contrast, denote all the industries not in existence today—the unknown market space, untainted by competition. In blue oceans, demand is created rather than fought over. So the Blue Ocean 4 Actions Framework Template is a great tool to consider when you feel like your company or your product is stuck in the ‘red ocean’ and you are looking for ways to innovate.
How to use the 4 Actions Framework template
Step 1: Eliminate
In each column, it’s important to ask questions about the industry standards in your product space. First, ask yourself, which factors that the industry has long competed on should be eliminated?
Think of the factors that require a lot of investment and effort, but don’t bring a lot of revenue/new customers and, in general, don’t drive key metrics up. These can also be the factors that made more sense in the past but are not as useful now — for example, a feature of differentiated a digital product in the past but became obsolete as time passed.
Step 2: Reduce
Which factors should be reduced well below the industry’s standard? Think of the features/characteristics of your product that are well designed to beat the competition but take to much time and resources. Can you strip this down to something more simple but still competitive and relevant to your users?
Step 3: Raise
Which factors should be raised well above the industry’s standard? What are the pain points that the market does not address? Think of the way you can build features that will help your customers solve challenges that other companies are not solving.
Step 4: Create
Which factors should be created that the industry has never offered? This is one of the most challenging questions and it requires a deep understanding of your customers’ interests and desires, as well as a good insight into where the industry is going. The goal is to think about the future and the challenges customers haven’t articulated yet.
What is the Four Actions Framework?
The Four Actions Framework is a blue ocean strategy tool that poses four central questions designed to help you create value innovation and break the value-cost trade-off. These four key questions or actions include: Eliminate, Reduce, Raise and Create. The framework helps you raise and create customer value, and reduce or eliminate what is not needed.
Get started with this template right now.
Business Model Canvas Template
Works best for:
Leadership, Agile Methodology, Strategic Planning
Your business model: Nothing is more fundamental to who you are, what you create and sell, or ultimately whether or not you succeed. Using nine key building blocks (representing nine core business elements), a BMC gives you a highly usable strategic tool to develop and display your business model. What makes this template great for your team? It’s quick and easy to use, it keeps your value proposition front and center, and it creates a space to inspire ideation.
Family Tree Template
Works best for:
Education, Mapping
Family trees help you make sense of complicated family relationships, even generations back. With this Family Tree Template, you can quickly and easily add your siblings, parents, and extended family members. Plus, add extra information, notes, and even images to create a vibrant family tree.
AWS Chef Automate Architecture Template
Works best for:
Software Development, Diagrams
The AWS Chef Automate Architecture Template is a visual representation of the AWS Chef framework. Track your cloud solutions easily, and automate operational tasks at scale like never before.
SOAR Analysis Template
Works best for:
Leadership, Decision Making, Strategic Planning
The SOAR Analysis template prompts you to consider your organization’s strengths and potential to create a shared vision of the future. The SOAR Analysis is unique in that it encourages you to focus on the positive rather than solely identifying areas for growth. SOAR stands for Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results. To use the template, examine each category through a positive lens. Perform a SOAR Analysis whenever you want to bring people together and encourage action.
Porter's Five Forces Template
Works best for:
Leadership, Strategic Planning, Market Research
Developed by Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter, Porter’s Five Forces has become one of the most popular and highly regarded business strategy tools available for teams. Use Porter’s Five Forces to measure the strength of your current competition and decide which markets you might be able to move into. Porter’s Five Forces include: supplier power, buyer power, rivalry among existing competitors, the threat of substitute products or services, the threat of substitute products and services, and the threat of new entrants.
RAID Log Template
Works best for:
Agile Methodology, Project Management, Agile Workflows
Use the RAID Log template to better understand potential risks, assumptions, issues, and dependencies relating to an upcoming project. With this information, you can make effective contingency plans and prepare your resources accordingly. You’ll know what could go wrong throughout the project and how to fix the problem.